I am reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Yesterday I finished off The Great Gatsby (which I know was on a high school summer reading list, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t give it proper attention, due to the fact that I approached this go-round confusing Daisy with Myrtle in the fate department), and the day before that I gobbled up Agatha Christie’s Appointment with Death like a piece of delicious candy. Back in my teens I considered myself a pretty accomplished reader and writer, but as I go through these fine pieces of literature I’m thinking to myself, “Have I just recently learned how to truly read something?” I remember liking The Great Gatsby because it was full of action and debauchery, but I don’t think I had the faintest idea what its point was. Did I think anything had a point back then? Other than to torture my poor teenage soul, of course…

Back in 2005, while riding the trains in Italy, I re-read 1984, a book I absolutely despised in high school. At age 24 I found that I absolutely loved 1984, though that realization did not tip off the kind of reading frenzy that I’m currently in the midst of right now. What I’m most afraid of is that I’ll run out of titles to investigate. So please, if you have a classic book that you love, share its title! Or, if you have a Shelfari account, friend me. You can do both, too.